How are we supposed to rejoice in trial ?

Answer by HH Radhanatha Swami

Everything is happening by the will of  God. Does anything happen apart from the will of God? He is the Supreme Controller. Not even a blade of grass can move without the sanction of God. So when we’re put in tests we should think that “God is showing me special attention.” When everything is going just right we should think, “Oh, I must be doing something wrong. God is neglecting me,” So we should welcome tests. When the tests come, we should welcome it in such a way that we benefit, that we come closer to Him in that test, that our love deepens, our appreciation and our gratitude to Him deepens in that situation. You can never know what a person’s mind really is until he’s tested.

How do you know who your friend is? As long as everything is all right and nice, you don’t know who your friends are. It’s when everything falls to pieces in your life and those people who are still by your side and have nothing to gain except all sorts of problems. Right? In other words, they can abandon you and they’re free of all your problems; but to be your friend, they have to share your problems. Right? Then you know who your friend is, and not until.

We should be Krishna’s friend and we should know that Krishna is our friend. Those spiritually-minded people who are standing beside us in all situations, in our ups and our downs, in our failures and our successes; they are our friends, our real friends, because they are God’s people. So we have to learn how to be a friend. We should not be so much seeking to have friends as to be a friend.